


Eye, Pirate

by lazaefair



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-17
Updated: 2010-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:05:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then Ragetti, with a tenderness that almost brought tears to my eyes, whispered softly and closely for Tia Dalma's ear only, "Calypso - I release you from your human bonds."</p><p>What I wanted to know was how Ragetti, of all people, had built up the feeling and emotion such that he could call to Tia Dalma with a sincerity that was powerful enough to satisfy magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye, Pirate

**Author's Note:**

> (Why yes, the title is a horrible, irrelevant pun on the Asimov short story.)

Amid the preparations for the voyage to Singapore, the swamp witch handed an ancient herb-smelling bag to Ragetti - "I betta not find dis _lost_ someday, pirate" with a hair-raising smile - and just like that, they were the official luggage-carriers for Tia Dalma.

There wasn't a lot. Not what couldn't be stowed in a corner of the stolen sloop's hold like everyone else's, though if Pintel noticed Ragetti arranging a protective shield of crates around Tia Dalma's belongings, well, neither of them were going to admit the priestess really had intimidated them that much. Pirates who knew all too well about the supernatural knew better than to treat powerful persons - and the priestess was powerful, anyone with even half the brain Pintel and Ragetti shared could sense it - _too_ cavalierly, for who knew what wrathful gods she could call upon their heads.

Ragetti did so want one of those lovely living eyes, though. Piece of bloody Eight or not, the wooden one did splinter something terrible.

&amp;

"'s the same country Bos'un came from, innit?" Ragetti whispered to Pintel, and the shorter man nodded, warily watching the crowds of muscular black men who seemed to swarm everywhere on the docks and later, in the town. More than one looked like he could have been the brother of the late crewman of the Pearl. More than one was in chains, though women were included as well as they were bought and sold and loaded onto slave ships.

Ragetti stuck closer to Pintel - being reminded of Bos'un always reminded him of when the man had broken Ragetti's back and left him draped over a cannon for three days. It didn't kill him, being undead the time, but but a man ain't likely to forget that sort of thing.

Tia Dalma, for once, fit in better than they did. Her brown sugar skin tone was still a lighter shade than the burnt black skin that prevailed here, but the natives took in her earthy, exotic attire without a second glance. Some seemed to know or guess at the meaning of the softly clacking bracelets of teeth and twisted nut husks lining her wrists and ankles and neck, and the faded symbols painted on her face, and accorded her a healthy respect tinged with superstitious fear. She walked the dirt streets and glided into ramshackle drinking establishments and witch doctor huts and men of all races and creeds fell into the web of her grinning, dark teeth and darker eyes.

Pintel and Ragetti, not being nearly so mesmerizing, remained outside the street, lost in the flow of foreign languages and uncomfortably frequent hostile glares.

Ragetti had just sat down to rest his legs when one of the children playing naked in the street skipped up to him and poked the wooden eye hard while the pirate got a good eyeful (with the good eye) of a toothless, wide open mouth that smelled of dirt. The kid chattered something and in a trice the whole gang came crowding around, poking and prodding, utterly fearless of the two pirates.

"'ey! Watch it!"

"Get off! ME EYE!"

Ragetti staggered to his feet and stumbled a little ways, pressed in an amiable swirl of chaos, Pintel growling as he swatted grasping hands away from his cutlass and pistol. Mild anarchy continued until Ragetti tripped and fell to his knees in the dust, catching himself on his hands and discovering bare brown feet and striped petticoat filling up his field of vision.

The hapless pirate had seen more than one amused smile directed his way but this was the first from Tia Dalma - the first that made him grin back sheepishly before he remembered who he was grinning at. She extended a hand to help him up when he finished flinching in surprise, as Pintel came puffing up behind them, muttering about little buggers 'aving no respect these days.

&amp;

Pintel and Ragetti stumbled sideways into an odd comradeship with Poppet somewhere off the South African coast, what with her being on the outs with Will and unwilling to fill the boring hours of sailing with Barbossa or Tia Dalma's company, and Cotton being a poor sort of conversationalist. Gibbs was superstitiously leery of both women on board. Which left Pintel and Ragetti - bonding over shared memories, as it were.

They spent a good amount of time in the general cabin belowdecks when they weren't on duty. Elizabeth was a stubborn girl, bless her heart, but boredom on a ship was a powerful impetus and she gave in soon enough to the tried and true method sailors had honed for easing the empty hours. No, not that, you dirty-minded dogs - the other one.

Elizabeth (slurring): Drink up, me heartieeees...

Pintel: What I wan' know, 's why 'at song says we like rotten eggs. Rotten eggs smell, 'n they taste terrible.

Ragetti: Nah, nah, it goes like this (singing - badly) Yo ho, 'n really bad...uh...really bad eggs...uh...not rotten, mate.

(He waves a bottle for emphasis.)

Pintel: 'ow does that--

Elizabeth: Maybe s'cause pirates smell. And...and! They taste _terrible_.

Pintel and Ragetti, scandalized: Poppet!

Elizabeth: What? Will didn...didn't tell you two t'be my nursemaids...did he?

Pintel gaped at the frightening thought and Ragetti and Poppet went off into laughter with no end in sight. A couple of bottles and odds and ends went clattering on the floor. Elizabeth fairly howled. "And I never knew pirates could be so scan...scandali...scannnda...li...!"

"Dearie, dey's scan_da_lized more times a day dan you might t'ink."

Tia Dalma seated herself on a crate and calmly helped herself to a swig or three while the trio gaped. She removed the bottle with a widely satisfied grin. "Aaaaaah, grog. Been a damn long time since I partook 'f de sailor's milk."

Elizabeth slowly unfolded herself on the floor where she'd tumbled. "It burns a bit...a bit more than milk, I'd say," she declaimed with eyebrows raised.

"'Course it does." Tia smiled serenely.

&amp;

India was an exotic, spicy stewpot of smells, but then, the pirates disembarking from their stolen sloop were smelling pretty pungent themselves.

"What wouldn't I give for a bath. Clean water. Clean!" Elizabeth moaned into Ragetti's shoulder.

"Poppet..." Ragetti's stiffening shoulders prompted Elizabeth to look up and gasp.

After cursed skeletons, sea-squid ghost captains, inhuman fish-crewmen, Krakens, and Tortugan whores, Pintel and Ragetti probably should've been jaded to the sight of a mere elephant. In their defense, even Barbossa paused in his stride and Tia Dalma paid her respects to the lord of the land beasts with an enigmatic hand gesture. The gold-bedecked animal had loomed out of nowhere in the crowded street, carrying some gorgeously attired sahib and his memsahib in the silken pavilion on its back.

Merchantmen, officials, workers, beggars and all manner of animals scurried to get out from under the enormous feet. While Marty, Cotton et. al. eyed the jewels and gold chain draped on the elephant's tusks, Ragetti murmured appreciatively over the expensive lace and silk of the lady's dress until Pintel rolled his eyes and elbowed the blond in the ribs.

"Christ, Rags, sometimes even I wonder 'f you were born a bloody eunuch."

"Can't help it 'f I fancy pretty things," Ragetti muttered. "Pirates're supposed to fancy pretty things, right?"

"That corset you've been admiring is really an abomination upon womankind," Elizabeth declared with the conviction of the enthusiastically pants-wearing.

"But they make a lady's figure look so nice!"

"Oh, f'_fuck's_ sake."

The group scattered every which way: Will and Barbossa and Elizabeth to purchase and argue provisions. Ragetti found that someone had fallen in step with him and Pintel, dark brown feet pacing softly on the rotting wooden boards of the docks district. Dark stained teeth smiled at him, and he was lost wondering the significance of the look she flashed him. Tia Dalma was gone by the time he shook himself out of reverie, and ran to catch up with a grumbling Pintel over by the parrot sellers.

&amp;

In Singapore, Tia Dalma proved to be fiendishly gleeful around explosives. She accepted the role of setting off the bombs and fireworks the crew had acquired a little too readily.

"I'm likin' her more and more," Ragetti whispered from under his coconut to Pintel, who rolled his eyes.

&amp;

Pintel sat hunched over, bent and frozen in his misery until he was fair on his way to becoming an iceberg himself. Ragetti, not much better, but at least he was philosophical about it. "Must be a good reason for our suffering." They were going to the end of the world, after all.

Tia Dalma passed by, said something mystical about the end of the world and ice and whatnot that as usual made little sense to either pirate.

Ragetti watched her as she stood in the bow of the sloop. She wore a thicker shawl in a meager concession to the freezing cold, but her feet were bare and he didn't recall her teeth chattering even once.

'F course. Goddesses don't get cold, Ragetti thought suddenly, and then wondered where the thought came from. Tia Dalma was no goddess, she was just a...a mysterious lady who gazed at the water and the sky and ice as if she commanded them. Sometimes afterwards when she happened to meet his eye, he got the creepy feeling that she didn't see any of them at all.

'Cept maybe Will. And Elizabeth. But then, the pretty ones always get the attention.

&amp;

They lost track of time in the endless night of the cave of stars. Everyone took to sleeping whenever they felt like it, without the sun or moon to indicate the proper times.

In between naps, they told stories to pass the hours. Elizabeth brought out the products of her education, English fairytales and Greek myths - tales from sunny Mediterranean lands that put everyone in mind, with a sharp ache, of the daylight they'd not seen in what felt like weeks.

The newly rescued Jack Sparrow contributed every now and then with tales of his (supposedly) wild exploits, treasures and talking animals and lusty wenches. Everyone obligingly failed to notice the slight tinge of hysteria that always edged his voice and expansive gestures these days, the same as everyone knew but didn't mention that the storytelling was just to take their minds off the ghosts of the dead drifting past in their little boats.

Even Tia Dalma told a tale or two, deep dark tales set in a lush jungle world that sent thrills and chills down their collective spines. Her voice deepened in soft, mesmerizing waves.

"Don't like it," Pintel grumbled later, softly. "Put me in mind of those hyp-no-teests, what got us in trouble back in Africa."

"'Spect she's just bored, Pinters. Everyone gets bored, even priestesses...es."

&amp;

Doldrums. Again.

"S' like we're stuck in a bloody myth," Pintel snarled when they realized it. "Heroes always get stuck in the bloody doldrums."

"But...that means we're heroes, right?"

"Oh, shut up."

Ragetti shut up - for a while. "I like bein' a hero, I think."

Pintel rolled his eyes. "We ain't heroes, Rags. We're-"

"Pirates." Tia Dalma said, doing the suddenly-appearing thing Pintel complained about (away from her presence). "Never can be heroes, pirates, wit dem alway t'inking about deyselves." She grinned impishly, eyes turned towards inner memories. "T'ough pirates are _damn_&gt; more int'resting dan most people."

Ragetti watched her while Pintel averted his eyes. Some would have said that Pintel took the wiser course.

"Pirates still need water t' live," Pintel half-grumbled.

"Hnn. Pity," Tia Dalma said, turning away, but not before the two pirates could miss the clenched fists, the glare of utter rage she cast towards the sea. Ragetti and Pintel just looked at each other and shrugged. Cryptic never had been their forte anyway, best left for the likes of Barbossa and Jack Sparrow.

&amp;

The doldrums went on. And on. Will suggested the oars but no one in the weakened crew wanted to row, and anyway, as one of the Chinese crewmen said, "How do you know we won't be rowing in circles around this devil's Locker?"

And they were bored, again. Some leaned against the side of the ship, gazing anxiously at the brilliantly oversized sun. Some slouched wherever they sat, like Pintel and Ragetti, thirsty and sullen. Some took to pacing, up and down and around the deck, occasionally hovering over Jack's shoulder where he sat abstractly spinning the pieces of the map.

By Tia Dalma's seventh restless pass around the ship (Barbossa was on his sixth, and Will on his fourth, though the lad vibrated between pacing and attempting to comfort a disconsolate Elizabeth) Ragetti felt like his eye could have burned a path into the Pearl's worn boards, trailing his gaze behind the priestess's bare feet. Pintel'd fallen into a doze, coming awake every few minutes to forlornly shake the empty rum bottle.

On the eighth circuit (Barbossa's seventh, Will's fourth and half, Cotton's parrot's third) she stopped and looked directly down at him as she passed by. Not a storytelling look. Nor was it the smoky look she used on other men in the island swamps and African huts, either. But maybe it was still a bit bewitching, for all that.

On the eighth and half, he got up and trailed her behind a couple barrels piled in a quiet, deserted patch of deck.

And then she turned, caught and held his gaze, flowed into his space and it was too late to pretend he hadn't followed her.

"Him wit one eye," she said eventually, "him greatest desire would be de ot'er man's two eyes, hmm?" Tia Dalma laid a hand on his chest, bare skin to bare skin a shock, the warmth burning through even the stifling heat of the Locker.

"Er," Ragetti said intelligently. "I..." Then he swore. Tia caught the wooden eyeball neatly with her other hand and waved the thing in his face, left right left right "Hey!" left right--

Ragetti blinked, checked himself. There was something filling up his empty eyehole, something...

It squelched into place, and then light poured into both sides of his vision, and he could see the wooden eye when her hand swayed to the right, it...he could _see_. Depth and color sprang into aching clarity. He swiveled his eyes. Didn't have to turn his head to see on his right side for the first time in fifteen years.

Jesus, Joseph, oh, _Mary_.

He would have turned further, shaky limbs flailing, making sure this wasn't a crazy fever dream - but Tia Dalma's hand tightened on his shirt, holding him still, her fierce eyes pinning him down. "Who are you?" he whispered, throat even dryer.

She pulled him down, lips brushing his ear. Hissed, "_Calypso_."

"Ca...cal..."

"Do not forget de name, pirate." Pause, during which Ragetti quivered, eyes darting. "But do not be quick to tell anyone, eit'er."

"Calypso - " he panted through the air vanishing from his lungs. Memory sparked. Elizabeth's clear English voice falling into a dreamlike state under the cave of stars as she told of adventures on the high seas 'way back in ancient times. "Not...not the goddess what went an' seduced Odysseus for seven years?"

A corner of her mouth turned up, lingering for several long breaths. Then, "Ay. And a pretty morsel him was, too." She uncurled her hand even as he gaped at her casual remark, and let him up, suddenly sensual and demanding as the movement somehow brought them even closer.

Bloody _hell_...Ragetti barely moved as her hand slid up, dry and calloused, touched his neck, cupped his cheek. He closed his eyes as she brushed a thumb over his eyelids, then opened them as she kissed his forehead gently. "You have de eyes of de sky," she said, and stepped away slowly.

Darkness fell forcefully on his right eye, and he instinctively put his hand over the empty hole, a frightened, trembling gesture he hadn't done since the first few weeks of losing the eye. He felt like weeping, but the socket only burned. _Calypso_ lifted the wooden eyeball and pressed her lips briefly to it, as if it were some sparkling gem.

"Keep dis safe," she said, pressing into into his hand and folding his fingers over it. "Your captain charged you. An' you will bear it." Then she turned her back on him and walked away. He watched until she vanished into the darkness of his blind side.

"We canna stay in de Locker more dan t'ree days," he heard her casually remark to someone on the other side of the ship, but he was shuffling back to Pintel, stumbling once when he misjudged the distance between his foot and a barrel.


End file.
